Maria Sharapova of Russia holds up the championship trophy after defeating Jelena Jankovic of Serbia to win the 2011 Cincinnati Open tennis tournament in Cincinnati Sunday. — Reuters CINCINNATI, Ohio — Fourth-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova survived an erratic performance to win the Cincinnati WTA title, prevailing 4-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-3 over Serbia's Jelena Jankovic. Sharapova, 24, earned her second title of the season after a triumph in Rome. She improved on her runner-up finish to Kim Clijsters here last year and gave herself a momentum boost prior to the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the season that starts on August 29 in New York. But it was no easy matter. After an aggressive start saw Sharapova take a 4-1 lead, Jankovic went on a roll, breaking the Russian three times in a row and taking the opening set when Sharapova double-faulted. The shift recalled last year's final, when Sharapova failed to convert three match points against Clijsters and ended up losing 2-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2. Despite a stream of unforced errors — including a total of 11 double faults — Sharapova finally took the second set, winning the last five points of the tiebreaker. “That's pretty much it, putting five points together that were well-played,” Sharapova said. The third set started with six straight breaks of serve before Sharapova held for a 4-3 lead. Jankovic double-faulted twice to surrender the next game, leaving Sharapova to serve out the match after two hours and 49 minutes. “It's been a great year for me so far,” said Sharapova, a three-time Grand Slam champion who reached the final at Wimbledon last month. Tomic falls In North Carolina, Australian Bernard Tomic endured another North American hardcourt defeat Sunday, exiting the opening round of the ATP tournament to go into the US Open with plenty to prove. On Sunday it was Russian Igor Andreev who sent Tomic packing 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-4 in little more than two hours in a contest peppered with 22 aces in the first round of the ATP's new Winston-Salem stop. American James Blake lined up a date with Dutch 10th seed Robin Haase by defeating Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan 7-5, 6-1. In other opening-day matches American Ryan Sweeting defeated Belgium's Olivier Rochus 6-3, 7-5. German Tobias Kamke hammered Alejandro Falla of Colombia 6-1, 6-0.
